EA Sports College Football

[RhowdyRam02]

EA Sports has officially announced they will be launching a new college football game for next generation consoles (PS5/Xbox series S or X) and will be partnering with the College Licensing Company to have over 100 FBS schools in the game. This will be the first college game released since 2013, having skipped entirely over the PS4/Xbox One generation of consoles. No official release date has been announced but the CLC told the FBS programs they represent that EA intends to release the new game in July of 2023.

Unfortunately URI will not be in the game because they will only have FBS schools. There is no word yet on whether they will allow people to create their own schools at this time. It will be interesting to see if EA Sports or 2k Sports bring back their dormant college basketball franchises, though this seems to set up that possibility for one or both companies to do that. There is also no word yet on how EA plans on handling the rosters for this game.

This will be a day one purchase for me and I will probably take a vacation day or two when it comes out. I would buy this game every year and I've kept my PS3 for pretty much the sole purpose of playing my copy of NCAA 14. I still fire that game up several times a year and play that almost exclusively for a month at a time. Two years is a long time to wait, but at least we know it's finally coming back

[SGreenwell]

I'm also psyched about the college football game coming back. I would just get lost in the Dynasty mode - it was awesome to take a smaller program, and work them up with recruits, culminating in national championships and joining a power conference.

I kind of hope they don't do yearly releases, though I realize the incentive for EA to do that. I think that's partially what killed the basketball series - you can really only do incremental improvements on that time frame, if you're not an incredible seller like Madden or College Football, and I'm not going to shell out $40 to $60 each year for just an incremental improvement on a game I already have.

[adam914]

I'll be all over this one as well. I kind of wish EA wasn't involved because they have been a mess lately, but I'll still give it a shot. And hopefully having a couple years to work on it will help. I am curious to see what kind of modes and features it will include though. Sports games like Madden, 2K and The Show are all built around modes with microtransactions now, but I'm not sure how that would work in a college game if they can't use real players. Now if they go out there and get licenses to include all-time college football players from the past then they could really be on to something.

[RhowdyRam02]

Have you either of you tried College Football Revamped? I've only heard about it in the last week, it looks cool, but not sure I want to go through the trouble of modding my PS3 for new uniforms and graphics for NCAA 14. EA hired two of the people that have worked on that project for their new game.

NCAA 14 did have ultimate team with past players and you could also collect stadiums, uniforms, mascots, and so on. I don't really remember a lot about it because I didn't have my PS3 hooked up online so never really did anything with it. According to this site they had some really impressive names you could get in that game:
https://mycanescoverage.weebly.com/ncaa ... abase.html

The whole thing with how they handle rosters is going to be interesting. I have to assume that they saw different states passing NIL laws, saw where things seem to be heading and figured that now was the time to jump in because by the time they're ready to go to market they should be able to use player likenesses. Not sure what their plan is though if NIL laws don't really allow for the real athletes to be in the game

[adam914]

Wow just checked out that College Football Revamped, I had never heard of it before but it looks pretty damn cool. I have a PS5 now so I wouldnt be able to use it anyway but it does look interesting. That's promising to hear that EA hired two of the people from that project. I love when companies are smart enough to hire the fans that put time and effort into making their games better.

[SGreenwell]

College Football Revamped looks kind of cool, although admittedly, I kind of like when NCAA and Madden and other games run through the "real" rosters and you advance to completely made-up players, haha.

[Rhodymob05]

Give us College basketball.

[RhowdyRam02]

All signs continue to point to July of 2023, and with the game typically released the second Tuesday of the month, we are unofficially one year away from playing this game after a decade of no college football video games!

[RhowdyRam02]

Here's a kind of update on where things stand with the game. Unfortunately EA has been very tight lipped, but some things have come out



Apparently FCS schools like URI won't be in the game at launch, but there is talk about possibly having them as downloadable content later on

[SGreenwell]

Here's a kind of update on where things stand with the game. Unfortunately EA has been very tight lipped, but some things have come out



Apparently FCS schools like URI won't be in the game at launch, but there is talk about possibly having them as downloadable content later on

In the past, the EA games have allowed a lot of customization with the rosters and teams... but that's also partially what got them in trouble, since it was kind of a "wink wink" thing when it came to player likeness. (i.e. Florida wouldn't have a QB named Tim Tebow. They would have a white QB, #15, who had great running abilities though!) I'd love if you could edit in FBS teams though, since one of the fun things in each edition for me was taking a 1-star URI team and trying to get them into a BCS conference just by recruiting over the years, haha.

[RhowdyRam02]

Agree with all of that. It will be interesting to see what the line will be for this when it comes out. Will they even have something like Team Builder, or will that leave them open for not paying players on created teams? How far down the depth chart will they go when making the rosters as real as possible? The lure of this game is Dynasty mode though, so most real players cycle out pretty quickly

[RhowdyRam02]

Give us College basketball.

One rumor making the rounds is that instead of stand alone college games outside of college football you could see colleges added to existing franchises. For instance, instead of a college soccer game, you could have college teams in FIFA and so on. I'd love to see stuff like that

[SGreenwell]

Give us College basketball.

One rumor making the rounds is that instead of stand alone college games outside of college football you could see colleges added to existing franchises. For instance, instead of a college soccer game, you could have college teams in FIFA and so on. I'd love to see stuff like that

Technology-wise, there's no reason EA couldn't make this happen. i.e. College could be a module in all of their existing professional sports game that you could play independently, or you could "follow" one player through a career. There's probably zero chance they do this though, because then it's just one yearly product to sell instead of two.

[RhowdyRam02]

Give us College basketball.

One rumor making the rounds is that instead of stand alone college games outside of college football you could see colleges added to existing franchises. For instance, instead of a college soccer game, you could have college teams in FIFA and so on. I'd love to see stuff like that

Technology-wise, there's no reason EA couldn't make this happen. i.e. College could be a module in all of their existing professional sports game that you could play independently, or you could "follow" one player through a career. There's probably zero chance they do this though, because then it's just one yearly product to sell instead of two.

Right as you say, when possible they would prefer to sell two products, which is why the college football game and Madden will never be combined into one game and why basketball might get a standalone game at some point. But for smaller college sports like hockey, soccer, or baseball it would just be better to combine into an existing game because you won't sell enough of the college only game but having colleges in the game will boost the already existing product

[RhowdyRam02]

So it looks like we'll get more information on the game Monday to coincidence with the national championship game

https://247sports.com/article/ea-sports ... 224585748/

[adam914]

Still really excited for this! I have a very hard time trusting EA to not screw it up, but hoping for the best.

[RhowdyRam02]

Rumor is the game will come out July 12th, but we saw how accurate the last rumor was

[adam914]

Rumor is the game will come out July 12th, but we saw how accurate the last rumor was

I wish I could find it now, but I saw one of the guys at EA responded to that rumor on Twitter and said that while they have not confirmed an actual date yet they are planning on releasing it this summer. So even if its not July 12th exactly, it should be close!

[RhowdyRam02]

Rumor is the game will come out July 12th, but we saw how accurate the last rumor was

I wish I could find it now, but I saw one of the guys at EA responded to that rumor on Twitter and said that while they have not confirmed an actual date yet they are planning on releasing it this summer. So even if its not July 12th exactly, it should be close!

Yeah, I saw that. It's definitely coming out this summer. When this summer and what it'll look like are the questions

[RhowdyRam02]

Rumor is the game will come out July 12th, but we saw how accurate the last rumor was

I wish I could find it now, but I saw one of the guys at EA responded to that rumor on Twitter and said that while they have not confirmed an actual date yet they are planning on releasing it this summer. So even if its not July 12th exactly, it should be close!

[adam914]

Ah there you go, nice find!

[adam914]

It's all happening!!!

[RhowdyRam02]

All FBS schools officially in the game

[RhowdyRam02]

So apparently they're hoping to have up to 85 real life players from all 134 schools in the game, but players have to opt in. That came from this link and also includes some players that have already opted in. In the battle of Texas Longhorns QBs, Quinn Ewers has opted into the game, Arch Manning doesn't want to be in.

https://www.foxsports.com/stories/colle ... n-the-game

Over 12,300 players have opted in, but not all of them will be in the game, some of the players who signed the paperwork are walk-ons or guys further down the depth chart:



There's an anticipation that 95% of scholarship players will opt in, and this doesn't include past players who will be in the game in ultimate team modes:



Finally the rumors are that we'll get the full reveal May 16th, and the game will come out 3 months from today, July 19th

[adam914]

Can't wait! Please don't screw this up EA (they're probably going to screw it up)

[RhowdyRam02]

There's a few things that give me hope:

1. They hired fans that worked on College Football Revamped, so they'll have fan voices not just in the room but actively working on it.

2. It's not just a reskin of Madden. If so it wouldn't be three plus years to bring it to market.

3. Unlike comparing this to a game from the previous season on the same console, we'll be comparing this to a game that came out 11 years ago two consoles ago. Even just taking that game and updating it for changes that have happened since the last game and updated graphics will feel like a huge upgrade.

[adam914]

There's a few things that give me hope:

1. They hired fans that worked on College Football Revamped, so they'll have fan voices not just in the room but actively working on it.

2. It's not just a reskin of Madden. If so it wouldn't be three plus years to bring it to market.

3. Unlike comparing this to a game from the previous season on the same console, we'll be comparing this to a game that came out 11 years ago two consoles ago. Even just taking that game and updating it for changes that have happened since the last game and updated graphics will feel like a huge upgrade.

Yeah, these are all solid points. A lot of my skepticism is mostly just me tempering my expectations because I don't trust EA. But you're right, and in addition to all those things it's such a huge launch for them and it's been hyped so much that they really need to get it right and I'm sure they realize that.

[RhowdyRam02]

There's a few things that give me hope:

1. They hired fans that worked on College Football Revamped, so they'll have fan voices not just in the room but actively working on it.

2. It's not just a reskin of Madden. If so it wouldn't be three plus years to bring it to market.

3. Unlike comparing this to a game from the previous season on the same console, we'll be comparing this to a game that came out 11 years ago two consoles ago. Even just taking that game and updating it for changes that have happened since the last game and updated graphics will feel like a huge upgrade.

Yeah, these are all solid points. A lot of my skepticism is mostly just me tempering my expectations because I don't trust EA. But you're right, and in addition to all those things it's such a huge launch for them and it's been hyped so much that they really need to get it right and I'm sure they realize that.

Which is probably why they pushed it back a year. It should have come out last year but they know they have a lot riding on this one